| Summary/Abstract |
The Kurdish armed forces and security forces, known as the Peshmerga and Asayish, respectively, have both been intensively politicized by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan from their foundation to the present. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has already experienced serious systematic crises caused by weak democratic institutions, poor governance, and a dysfunctional party system. The failure to build cohesive armed forces in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq exacerbates these issues because it politicizes basic internal and external security. This article, based on interviews with the Kurdish authorities, discusses the ramifications of the KRG’s politicized forces on the democratic process, civil-military relations, the defence readiness of the Kurdish armed forces, societal instability, and judicial power. This research argues that Kurdish politicized forces severely affect the democratic process in the Kurdistan Region, create problems for civil-military relations, undermine defence readiness, cause instability, and also have a considerable, negative impact on judicial power.
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